Mutations in the TERC Template Sequence Can Be Incorporated into the Telomeres of Human Tumors

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2022 Aug 25

PMID 36006930

Authors

Radwa Sharaf

Garrett M Frampton

Lee A Albacker

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Telomerase-mediated lengthening is a mechanism by which some cancer cells avoid senescence-mediated cell cycle arrest due to shortened telomeres. By reverse transcribing an RNA template, encoded by TERC, the enzyme telomerase synthesizes the elongation of telomeric DNA using the 3' end of the chromosome as a primer. TERC harbors a highly conserved template region consisting of 11 nucleotides spanning hg19 coordinates chr3:169482793-169482803. In human cell lines, when TERC was mutated to alter its template region, telomerase generated the predicted mutant telomeric repeats. However, it is unknown if this can occur in human clinical samples. Here, we report on the rare occurrence of two tumor samples where TERC template mutations were reflected in telomeric repeats.

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